Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" (C) ABBA; 1993 Polydor / Umgd.

CHAPTER 9
RESTRAINT

"What time is it, doll?" Hyde said. He'd been sedated and put in a hospital gown, a hospital bed... a hospital room. His left wrist was bandaged up. His right wrist had an IV in it, and his body was hooked up to annoying, beeping machines.

"3:17," Jackie said. She was no longer naked but dressed in his red Allman Brothers Band shirt and a pair of his jeans. One of his belts was buckled tightly around her waist.

"Is it tomorrow?"

She clutched his right hand in both of hers. "Yeah, Puddin'. It's Sunday."

"You're lying."

"It's what I do." She smiled at him, but he shut his eyes.

It hurt to see it, her smile. He didn't have his shades on, couldn't shield himself from what she radiated at him. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the warmth she was trying to project. He tried to give into his grogginess, but the machine monitoring his heartbeat had sped up its beeping. Man, he wished it would shut up.

"This is it for me, Jackie," he said after a while. "Just gonna keep doing the same things over and over, find myself in the same place."

"Where do you want to be?" she said gently.

"Tomorrow."

"But..." she caressed the curve between his thumb and forefinger, "won't that be the same as today?"

"Not if it's Sunday."

"But if you keep doing the same things?"

He opened his eyes. The question had momentarily stunned him. "Sunday'll be just like Saturday. Except with football."

"Steven..." She let go of his hand and stood from her chair, pressed her lips to his mouth.

He kissed her back weakly.

"I love you," she spoke into him.

"More than getting married?"

The room's door opened before she could answer. "How's my favorite guest?" Mrs. Forman said. She had a tray of food in her arms. "You need to eat, honey. You slept through lunch." She put the tray down on a rolling table. Then she adjusted the hospital bed so he was sitting up. "You feeling all right, sweetie?"

"I wanna talk to Forman," he said. The words broke out of his mind like prisoners. "I gotta talk to him, Mrs. Forman."

"I'm—I'm sorry, honey. His plane hasn't landed yet."

"I gotta talk to him," Hyde said again. He started to get out of the bed.

"Steven," Mrs. Forman held him at the shoulders, "I'll get you some paper, and you can write him a letter, okay?"

Pain shot from his bruised ribs into his chest, but he pushed against her grip. "It won't get there."

"Steven," Jackie said, "you can talk to me. You can say anything, baby. Just, please, sit back down."

He grunted and settled back into the bed. Mrs. Forman wheeled the table to him, but he had no interest in eating.

"At least try the Jell-O," Mrs. Forman said.

He picked up the bowl of shiny red cubes. "What happened to the woman?"

"What woman?" Jackie said, but Mrs. Forman looked away.

"Is she okay?" he said.

Mrs. Forman stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers. "You should concentrate on getting your strength back, honey."

He put the bowl of Jell-O back on the tray. "She's dead."

"Who?" Jackie said. "Who's dead?"

Mrs. Forman sighed. "The bleeding from her head trauma was too severe. Maybe if she'd gotten here earlier, we could've saved her."

"How much earlier?"

"I—" Mrs. Forman frowned, "I don't know."

That wasn't good enough an answer. Hyde detached himself from the machines monitoring his heart and blood pressure, yanked out the IV. Then he shoved the table aside and got out of the bed.

"Oh, God—" Mrs. Forman shoved open the room's door and shouted for help.

"Steven, what are you doing?" Jackie said.

"I gotta end this day."

"No!" She thrust herself forward and held him tightly. "No, I don't wanna be here without you."

"What?"

"I don't care if we're together or not, okay? I just need you here... on this planet. I need you here, Steven."

"Jackie... I'm not going to—well, I am, but I'll be back tomorrow. And it'll be like today never happened 'cause tomorrow is today. Don't you get it, man? Today doesn't count." Hyde was holding her now, and she looked up at him, clearly not understanding. "I've died over a dozen times already. And I wake up, good as new."

"Steven, you're not making any sense."

He couldn't explain it any better. He pulled Jackie off him, but the door swung open at the same moment. Mrs. Forman stepped aside as another nurse, a doctor, and two orderlies barged into the room. Hyde didn't have a chance. He was pushed onto the bed, a needle was stuck in his arm, and he sank into a relaxing fog.


Hyde awoke in a different room. The lights were dim. A thick curtain separated him from what had to be his "roommate". Those annoying beeps were here, too, because his body was hooked back up to machines, and Mrs. Forman sat at his bedside with a guy he didn't recognize.

"Where's Jackie?" Hyde said.

"Steven, this is James," Mrs. Forman said. "He's a crisis counselor, honey. He's here to help you."

Hyde glanced at his left wrist. No watch. Just a thick bandage and a restraint. "What day is it?"

"Sa—Saturday," she said.

"Knock me back out."

James cleared his throat. His shaggy haircut contrasted badly with his stiff suit. "Steven, I understand that you've been feeling trapped. Do you know when that feeling started?"

"The second you opened your mouth, man."

"Steven..." Mrs. Forman's eyes were full of worry. If she hadn't been there, he would've acted like a nutjob on purpose and gotten himself re-sedated.

"275 days ago," Hyde said.

"What happened 275 ago?" James said.

"Caught my girl about to screw her ex-boyfriend—"

Mrs. Forman gasped. "Jackie?"

Something dark was crawling along the edges of Hyde's mind. Could've been an effect of the drugs he'd been dosed with, but his mouth let it loose. "No, it started before then. Donna shoved me off the Water Tower."

"That's how you fell off the... That red-headed blonde harlot!" Mrs. Forman shouted. "First she takes my precious baby boy from me; now she's taken my precious—"

"Nurse Kitty, please control yourself," James said. "We don't want to put Steven under any more stress." He turned back to Hyde. "Donna pushed you off the Water Tower, and that's when you began to feel trapped?"

"Think so," Hyde said, but he was talking without thinking. He didn't recognize the words leaving his mouth.

James nodded. "Why did she push you off the Water Tower, Steven?"

"Forman had bailed on their wedding. I made her laugh, and she..." Hyde closed his eyes. "What the hell did you drug me with? Some kind of truth serum?"

"There's no such thing, Steven. Believe me, if there were, my job would be a lot—" James cleared his throat again. "It must have been frightening to face your own mortality like that. You're only nineteen—"

"Nah. I've died fourteen times, man, and it's no big deal." Hyde opened his eyes. "The part before death, that's what sucks ass."

"Fourteen..." James's legs were crossed; he uncrossed them. "How?"

"Car crash, drug overdose, bar fight, bar fight, bar fight, bar fight, bar fight," Hyde took a breath, "bar fight, bar fight, bar fight, bar fight, bar fight," he took another breath, "bar fight, bar fight... though, technically, three of those were stabbings and two were shootings. The rest I just got the shit kicked out of me. Oh, once a guy smashed my skull into the curb."

Mrs. Forman covered her mouth, and her eyes widened in horror. "Why, Steven?" She started to cry. "Why do you want to die? Is it because I didn't mother you enough?" She leaned over the bed and hugged him. "I love you as much as if I'd given birth to you myself."

Guilt scraped at Hyde's heart as she cried. He shouldn't have said all that in front of her, but she'd forget it "tomorrow".

Her face pressed into his neck, dampening his skin with tears. "I should've taken you out of that horrible woman's home when you were little." Then she gasped by his ear. "Of course you feel trapped! Growing up in that house, with those people... it must be like—like you're still there! My poor baby!" She hugged him tighter, and his ribs twinged at the pressure, but James finally did something useful and pulled her off.

"Mrs. Forman, I don't wanna die," Hyde said. "I want my damn life back."

"How did you lose it?" James said.

"If I knew that, would I fucking be here?"

James sighed. "Let me rephrase: Why do you feel you lost your life?"

Hyde tried to reach behind himself to his pillow, to chuck it at the guy's face, but the restraints on his wrists didn't let him move. "Jackie," he said.

"Your girlfriend. You feel as though you've lost her—"

"No, I want to see her."

"Steven, it's..." Mrs. Forman looked at her watch, "late."

Hyde didn't like the sound of that. "How late?"

"It's almost midnight," Mrs. Forman said.

"Is she here?"

"You'll see her first thing in the morning, honey. I'll make sure of—"

"Mrs. Forman, I gotta see her now."

"Steven, I—"

"Please."

"All right, sweetie. All right."

Mrs. Forman stood up with James, who said, "One day at a time, Steven. One day at a time, and you'll get to where you want to be." He opened the door for Mrs. Forman and followed her out.

"Pinhead," Hyde muttered and peered around the room anxiously. He needed to talk to Jackie, this Jackie, the one he'd affected with his words today and his actions. She'd be gone "tomorrow," and he couldn't go through this again to get her back.

She entered the room several minutes later with a nurse. Hyde waved a pathetic, "Hello," with his fingers—he couldn't move anything else—and Jackie burst into tears. The nurse, meanwhile, began to inject something into his IV line.

"What is that?" Hyde said.

"This will help you get some good sleep tonight," the nurse said.

"How long will it take to work?"

"About five minutes."

Crap.

Jackie had sat down in Mrs. Forman's chair. She was crying into her hands.

"Jackie," he said, "Jackie, I need you to quit crying."

"It's my fault," she said through her sobs. "If you hadn't found me and Michael—"

"Drop it already. I don't care."

The nurse was finished with the injection. "Ms. Burkhart, please try to calm down... and don't stay too long." Then she gave Hyde a small smile before leaving. "Let yourself fall asleep. Rest is good for you."

Jackie held his right hand and and controlled her breathing. "Steven, you have to understand what happened in Chicago. I was alone, and I thought—"

"You lost me."

"Yes." She nodded and gave his hand a squeeze. "Baby, I know what it's like to feel trapped. I got the job offer, and I didn't know if I'd get a chance like that again. With my family losing so much of our money, going to a good college became out of the question. I didn't get the scholarships I applied for—"

"What?" He struggled to sit up, but the restrains kept him on his back. "I didn't know you—"

"Shh," Jackie said. "That was one dream I had to let go of, but losing you... " Her breathing sped up again as fresh tears spilled from her eyes. "Life without you feels like a nightmare, Steven. And when you just let me go to Chicago, I wanted to wake up so badly. Michael was the only comfort I had."

"I get it now. I get it, but why..." His eyes were drifting closed. He forced them open. "Why do you wanna 'waste' any more of your time on me?"

"Oh, God." She lowered her forehead to the back of his hand. "I'm so, so sorry I said that." She kissed his fingers, pressed her cheek against them. "I wish I'd known..."

"Known what?" His eyes were closed now, and he couldn't reopen them.

"That you wanted me."

"Why didn't...?"

"You stopped telling me."

Hyde tried to answer, but the sedative pulled him toward unconsciousness. "Pushed me too..."

"I'm afraid, Steven."

"Of...?"

"Just don't give up. Please, don't give up. Not for me. For yourself. You're too..."

He struggled to hear, but a deafening blackness sucked out the rest of her sentence. The next sound he heard wasn't her voice; it was...

"I do, I do, I do, I do, I do."